new from overnight, flames rip through two different houses. this morning, what is coming to light now that the fires are out. a person killed overnight steps from a busy metro stop. what we know about what happened. >> quite the celebration after the terps pull off one of the biggest upsets of the year. i am richard jordan. >> i am angie goff pf those

stories are straight ahead, but first we want to get your forecast. >> storm team 4 chuck bell joins us. >> the skies have cleared out and the winds have picked up and as a result temperatures are only have the temperatures this morning. windchills now are back down in the single digits in hagerstown, so really bundle up on your way out the door. your sunday starter, cold and breezy now. and we will have snow flurries, and not expecting accumulations but windy and cold, and more on this coming up. two house fires and a child is badly hurt in one case. a 4-year-old is in critical

condition. firefighters say a firefighter was also hurt in that fire. and this fire started around 1:00 a.m. firefighters have not said if anybody was hurt here or how much damage this fire caused. police saying a driver hit a person on m street in northeast, not far from the metro station on the red line. d.c. police did not release the name of the victim or car involved. university of maryland students are probably still celebrating the win for the terps. news4's darcy spencer shows us the attempts to keep the crowd under control. >> it was a virtual stampede,

students rushed to a bon fire. students celebrating the win over duke, probably the last time the two teams will play as conference rivals >> i was so nervous the lasts two minutes, and always had hope, though. >> reporter: students set destructive fires, and this is different, this fire set on campus by the university police department. the bon fire set to keep students away from route 1, and the students continued their celebration. >> it's the best thing the university could have done, and it's our last game against duke, and it's awesome. >> and then the students went back to interstate 1, shutting

down knox road. there was a heavy police presence and some destruction, and police let the students celebrate as long as they were safe. darcy spencer, news4 today. >> as darcy noted there, this might be the last time the two teams played each other because maryland is moving to the big 10 conference, and we will have highlights in the next half hour. today thousands from across the country will march here in washington for what is being called the largest climate rally in america history. the climate rally starts today at new at the washington monument followed by a march to the white house. organizers hope to challenge the president to keep his commitment to address climate change. and we get an idea of what the proposal might look for. undocumented immigrants could be

legal residents within eight years, and requiring businesses to check the status of new hires. and the president has said his administration will only move forward if congress fails to act. this morning the death toll has risen to 81 from a bomb blast. a bomb hidden in a water tank at a market exploded in a shiite neighborhood. a sunni group complaints responsibility for the attack. gas prices shoot up overnight, and the national average standing at $3.71, and that's a 3 cent increase from 24 hours ago. typically prices rise about 50 cents between march and may, so they warn that $4 gas could be back later this year.

in our area, checking around, d.c. is at $3.90, a 5-cent increase from yesterday, and maryland drivers, you are paying 4 cents more, $3.71 a gallon, and even with the higher gas prices you may want to pick the car over metro this holiday weekend as seven stations are closed because of track work. and on the original line, dean wood is shut down. and you can take a bus between stadium-armory and cheverly on the orange and state and armory and largo on the blue. >> not a good day for the travelers. >> pack the patience is what we say. how a smart phone and surveillance camera helped track down a suspected car thief.

>> and sticky fingers? and how unusual weather during a snowstorm possibly connected to a fire? chuck bell will be back with

in north carolina linea a rare weather event may have caused a explosion. lightning may have sparked a fire at the gas station, and it shook home up to two miles away. lightning and thunder are rare during a snowstorm, and we have this going on, and meteors

falling. >> where is the mayan calendar when you need it? i saw engine 5 in the video, so my brother-in-law had to be close. it was a great day, and who loves the cold in the snow, and today everybody around here for your cold-loving hound dogs, it's going to be a good day to be outside. it's going to be windy and chilly all day long today. no real reprieve in the coldness for your sunday. outside right now, skies have gone mostly clear and it has remained very chilly, 28 degrees now in washington. winds out of the northwest averaging 8 miles per hour and gusting as high as 23, and as a result windchills will be a real factor today.

air temperatures generally in the mid-20s around town, and low 20s across parts of maryland. and teens to around 20 right now, and that's not going to change much today. college park even celebrating the big win it will be a cold day today, up to about 34 around noontime, and later this afternoon there will be a chance of passing snow showers coming our way, and not adding up to much but could add a coating of white to the ground and back below the freezing mark by 9:00 tonight. and not much showing up on the radar right now. snowflakes towards winchester and martinsburg, and these are all coming downwind off of the great lakes, and the northwest wind will continue to dry the snowflakes southbound. and many could see slight delays today. for us, just windy. windy and cold with the passing flurries and snow flurries off

and on. things will clear out and it will be a cold start tomorrow morning, widespread teens and low 20s to get your monday morning started. tomorrow, plenty of sunshine, but a cold sunshine on your monday. today, here is your world of the day. cold. no doubt about that. temperatures 20s to 30s, and then in the afternoon, windy and snow flurries. windchills down near 20 degrees. 7-day forecast, there is your cold and windy sunday, and monday. the biggest thing we need to watch out for in the next couple days will be tuesday morning. tuesday morning's commute to work and school could get icy and dicey around here, and temperatures will be below freezing to start so we may have to worry about real slipperiness and even school delays on tuesday. probably won't need

cancellations, because by midafternoon we could be in the 40s, and what could start as ice may end as rain, but look for potential travel delays by tuesday. good morning, welcome to "reporter's notebook." we begin with a tuesdayle over transportation funding in virginia. there was a re-writing of the fund bill, and it restores the gas tax hike and it allows localities to tack on another 1%. it appeared this was headed for compromise, but we have seen contentious sausage making, would you say? >> it's the taxes versus the need for the sustainable energy policy and funding for the insuretives has going.

as you just said, the crush here is in the house. they want to take the gas tax away. the governor has given up on it. he wanted it for a while but is willing to compromise, and now it's up to the 20/20 side on the senate. the indication is ultimately it will be pulled off and it will be saved. >> pulling it off, i aopl concerned about how the compromise will go. will this be more of a burden on poor people when you hear about sales tax, and is this going to be the fuel tax being bumped up more. the governor from the start did not want the gas tax, but when it comes to compromise more will go into the avenues where poor people are going to have to pay more. >> seems like there's an interesting compromise here, and

that is that it's a 1% on sales on fuel. >> right. >> and this is what the democrats wanted. remember, they don't want sales tax because of what you just said, the impact it would have to poor people. so here you have localities would get 1% and state would get 1%, and it's obviously going to fail in the house and they will come back and reach a compromise. so i think, again, we'll see what happens, but it looks like you are right, the fuel tax is probably going to win out, because that means those of us that travel through virginia, vacation tphurz, and that type of thing, that's who the democrats think should pay the bulk of it. >> and cutting the hours of part time workers, and this is from

the affordable care act. under the new act workers that put 30 hours a week will be considered full time and their employers have to pay for insurance. >> 7,400 wage employees, and you are talking about liquor store employees and clerks and their families. what the governor is saying here, give us time, we're looking at, i think it was something like $60 million it might cost us. i am doing this because i need time to figure this out. but in the meantime, i mean, you know, republicans are interesting. they are fighting over whether to increase minimum wage now, and now you are cutting hours, and who do you cut? you cut people who really need every dime they can get. >> in one population it will hurt is single parents.

>> dave? >> very briefly, this was a criticism by republicans of the health care act, and it was expensive and going to hurt businesses and people, and the counter argument to that is is that costs will be better off for it, and there's a way to bring these people in and still pay for them and frankly the republicans are crying wolf, and that's what they are saying, but, you know. >> you want healthy employees. the state wants -- private people want it, and you want healthy employees, because they work better and are more productive. >> still, a pressure here for poor people, and -- i have to think of single parenting here, what it's like to raise your children by yourself. >> and regarding the employers, we should say the affordable health care act only applies to employers that have 50 workers or more. >> yeah. the smaller agencies will not

have to comply with the federal law. >> you have community colleges that will be impacted by this and that type of thing. but i think eventually they think like other governors, they will bounce back. >> and meanwhile, holding their breath for sequestration? >> we have been hearing it from senators kaine, and hoyer, and everybody in the delegation is quaking. it's going to hit defense like the social programs. the social program cuts are devastating on their merit. when you talk about defense, readiness, deployment, and carrier, and missions, things like that and troop deployment, and then locally you look at all the defense people civilians working, and all of the defense contractors, our economy is based a lot on the prau fits of

defense contractors, and they will get wiped out we are told, many of they will will. so it's a huge problem. if it goes for a couple days or maybe a week, they think they can work their way out and there are all kinds of new plans. the democrats want to end employment and tax benefits for the wealthy, and the republicans are against anything with a tax on it, and they are strictly for cuts, and there's no sign of any kind of a compromise. >> and there was an interesting statement, and the fact that the greatest threat to national security is budget uncertainty, and this is an example that if this thing goes through, it's going to hurt a lot, and especially in northern virginia. >> not just northern virginia, we're talking about the washington region. >> and the number of people who will be laid off, and two, not hired because you can't hire if

you don't have a budget to do it, and then take into account that a lot of universities and hospitals here get grants to study, the impact that that might have. how do you know if you are going to get this grant, because it's not just employees, they will be cutting grants and the whole like. and this is major, and quite honest honestly, i think they are probably going to take it down to the wire. i really think that's what is really going to happen, and then there will be a piecemeal that will fix it. >> that's the democrats plan, give us a year and we will work on it then. >> we have to take a break and

welcome back. last monday reporters got a tour of the convention center, and mayor gray held the tour, and

it's located across the street from the convention center, and when it opens in may of next year it will be the city's largest hotel with 1,175 rooms and it already has 330,000 nights booked and it sounds like a lot of demand, doesn't it? >> it's a big deal. and this is one impediment to a skyrocketing effort by the convention center to be a host for everything. and they don't have a hotel near it as most cities do, and now they will have a hotel within a year. a lot of rooms are already being booked. >> and there are two smaller properties nearby, all part of the convention center complex. >> if you look back over the last five years, or longer than that, since the convention center was built, there was a cloud hovering over where people will stay and how can we get

more conventions coming into d.c., and we can't get the big-time conventions because people have no place to stay. >> the convention center went up in 2003, and there has been legal and political wrangling over it. what about the impact on the city's economy? >> oh, the impact on the economy means you are talking about jobs, jobs, jobs. this is a great city to have a convention and the reason is there's something in washington, d.c. for everybody. so while you may have the conventioners at the convention, this is a city where you can bring your family and they can go on tours and museums and there's a lot of free stuff here where you would not have in new york or atlantic city or chicago or philadelphia, and so this is going to be a big boom, and it's a good thing that they finally got this thing going and rolling. >> for a lot of corporations, we are talking about the seat of the government, which is there

is leverage there. >> is it going to be competition for national harbor? >> well, now -- >> the argument is everybody should be -- they can absorb all of it. there's enough people that want to come to washington that will for one reason or another will go to the harbor or the hotel, and the hotel has a unique position, and there's only one washington, d.c. >> you do raise an interesting question, because there has always been a fear that national harbor will drain the district of columbia of much commerce. >> what will happen, you have certain sized conventions, and the larger conventions will hit washington, d.c., and national harbor will get their conventions that will fit the national harbor. >> aren't they targeting conventiongoers going to other major cities? >> that's what you are targeting. it's usually three or four years

out. this is how conventions tend to work. that's why you see all the rooms booked so far. meanwhile, not far away from this new convention center hotel, the polite of homeless children in the city again, more than 600 homeless children and their families crammed into the d.c. general shelter. people are asking how can this be in the nation's capital? the economy is blooming, and new hols and construction, and -- >> out of sight, out of mind. >> out of sight, out of mind. >> this is one of the worst stories i have heard and read about and seen in a long time. it's a black eye and embarrassment to washington, d.c. for all the reasons you have said, and i wonder where the mayor was on this, and i

wonder where the chairman of the committee that handles this was on this, and this matter needs to be addressed immediately. >> yeah, mitch snyder came in with the community, maybe over 30 years ago, and it was a big deal. they made a movie out of his polite here and his quest and he testified before congress. i have not covered a hearing on homelessness in as long as i can can remember. >> the whole thing of image here plays an important part. we are so busy with development, condominiums and everything else, they forgot there are people in this town that can't afford to live in the district of columbia, so the question is, where does these kids come from? our neighborhoods. >> you don't see homeless children, but you see homeless adults and veterans, but you don't see homeless children on the corners panhandling and begging, and they are totally out of sight and now they are

not. >> $417 million surplus, is the mayor going to dump some of that in the situation? >> was the district snubbed? the president has the taxation, the d.c. tag on his limo, but did not bring it up. >> i talked to a congressman right outside the chamber when she was totally dejected and unhappy, and peeved to put it mildly. she probably has called the white house and let them know. i said what is the reason? she said i can't think of any reason they didn't do it. there in effect is no strategy. this is a low level operation for the obama administration from the word go. i am not saying it myself, but the critics say they tpher took a proper interest in the district. >> i hear all of this, but i don't know. the president has three more

years with other states of the union addresses. the district of columbia is affecting 600,000 people out of millions of people in the country. i don't think eleanor has a good argument here as to why it wasn't brought up. he is trying to do a lot -- >> well, she has a right to bring it up. we have a right to keep asking. look, we play checkers, one move at a time. this president plays chess. don't be surprise, he has three more state of the union addresses to give. >> this isn't to say -- after all i said, it's not to say they aren't working on it in the white house. >> thank you, and that's "reporter's notebook." stay with us as "news4 today" continues. good morning. it's sunday, february 17th,